


the importance of control

by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bodily Fluids, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s01e11 Alone Time, Flashbacks, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Rape/Non-con Elements, Scent Marking, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:07:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: The faintest hint of coppery fear stink has begun to rise off Malcolm’s skin, and if the scent dampeners are reaching the end of their efficacy, that means the suppressants will be wearing off next.If he’s lucky, he’s got another eight hours, and if he’s not....[Alone Time a/b/o style for a prompt on the pson kink meme]
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Paul Lazar | John Watkins, Paul Lazar | John Watkins & Martin Whitly
Comments: 23
Kudos: 108
Collections: Prodigal Son Kink Meme





	the importance of control

**Author's Note:**

> Endless thank yous to [KateSamantha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katesamantha) for giving this a read and cheerleading me through writing the "nice" part. Per usual if I'm missing any tags or warnings you think I ought to have, please let me know.

Malcolm has no idea what time it is when he wakes on the floor. He sits up with some effort, stone chill beneath his palms. The room tilts briefly. There’s an ache in his skull: a steady throbbing that flares up when he raises his hands to probe at the source of the hurt. His scalp is sticky with dried and drying blood and he blinks in bewilderment at the chains dangling from his wrists until his memory catches up with him.

Dropping his hands back in his lap, he stares around the room to see if anything stands out. Nothing’s changed. There’s still the light and the canvas bag John had brought in and no clues to tell him where he is or the time of day. The countdown clock ticking away in the back of his head is just a series of increasingly terrifying question marks. There’s no telling how much longer he has until his meds stop working.

Coming off the benzos is going to be harsh, but who cares about a little psychosis? It’s his other daily medication that’s the real concern. Malcolm sniffs the air and his already rapid heartbeat jumps. The faintest hint of coppery fear stink has begun to rise off his own skin, and if the scent dampeners are reaching the end of their efficacy, that means the suppressants will be wearing off next.

If he’s lucky, he’s got another eight hours, and if he’s not....

*

The next time John comes for a visit, Malcolm’s senses are heightened enough that he can taste him on the air before he enters. And John? John can tell that something has changed. His steps slow into a prowl as he draws near, and his expression turns inquisitive before he drops into a crouch. He lingers just beyond Malcolm’s reach, mouth parted slightly as he tastes the air.

“I told you that you didn’t have to be scared.”

Malcolm boldly meets John’s eyes, training overriding instinct. “If that’s true, why don’t you unchain me? I might be less afraid if that were the case.”

A huff of amusement, and then John’s mouth twists into a smile before he says, “So it’s all led to this….”

His words imply that he believes fate has had a hand in this moment, and he stares intently at Malcolm as he goes on and on about togetherness.

The room should be colder than it is, the stone leaching heat from Malcolm’s skin a hardship instead of soothingly cool beneath his knees. When John so easily brushes off Malcolm’s attempts to question him and dig into the roots of his fanaticism, that hook of fear in Malcolm’s guts twists deeper. 

He talks it out, John’s change in behavior, taking solace in the profile shaping up in front of him, but it doesn’t alter the fact looming around him: John may be evolving before his eyes, but Malcolm can’t evolve fast enough to escape his own biology. His core temperature rises noticeably.

“There’s a reason you took me,” Malcolm says, and the distance afforded to him by the analysis shrinks and shrinks as fear-smell pours off his skin. “You’re— You’re looking for a connection.”

“We’ve always had a connection,” John tells him, his grin showing the sharp points of his canines. “Don’t you remember?”

And then, suddenly, he does.

_There’d been an argument: His mother’s hands gripping his shoulders tightly and demanding Martin put him on suppressants before his first heat like the rest of his peers. “He’s going to be an early bloomer just like me, I can _feel_ it Martin. We need to protect him!”_

_“He needs to be able to protect himself,” Martin had told her. His gaze refused any argument as he stared her down. Then a change: a forcible softening of his look and his tone. “Jess, every omega should know just how weak nature has made them, and just how strong they can be if they fight it.”_

_He remembers the smile his father turned on him then, gentle and reassuring, and warm, so warm._

_“You’re my son. When you get your first heat, you’ll be just fine. I promise.”_

Malcolm winces at the slam of memories: smells and sounds and so much shouting it rings in his ears and blurs his vision. He presses the heel of his hand to his eye as he tries to process it all.

“You’re remembering now, aren’t you, little Malcolm?” John shifts his weight to his forward ankle, leaning close enough that Malcolm can scent his growing arousal.

Malcolm bares his teeth, “I’ll kill you if you touch me.” 

John cocks his head, his smile sharp and knowing. “Oh we’ve done that dance already. But it didn’t work out for either of us the last time, did it?”

_John’s gaze had been fixed on Malcolm, edging around the wall of his father’s body that was stood between them._

_“Your boy’s ripening, Martin.”_

_“And he is still_ my boy,” _Martin snarled._

_They were in a cabin._

That was…. He’d never been able to remember his first heat, and this must be why. He must’ve gotten his first cycle during that camping trip. But how did they get to that moment? He’d been what—Crying?

Foggily Malcolm remembers sniffling into his sleeve. And before that?

_He’d stood in the bathroom with a strange not-quite-itch between his legs—his genitalia swollen and tender. Martin had walked him through the onset of heat in a medical textbook once, but knowing the names and functions of all of his parts hadn’t prepared him for the creeping worry when peeing didn’t make the strange pressure go away._

_He’d gone through nearly half a roll of toilet paper trying to stop the fluid slipping down his legs. He hadn’t wet the bed in years and even though it didn’t feel the same—it wasn’t coming from his penis but from his front hole—it wouldn’t stop leaking out of him. Clenching his muscles did nothing to slow the dripping and only made him feel more weird. He began to cry and rip more toilet paper off the roll then there were footsteps behind him, at the door to the bathroom._

Had Martin known he’d be entering his first heat and wanted him out of the city while he was in the throes? Had he brought John with him to stand guard? Or something worse. Something darker. Had he intended to breed Malcolm to him?

No. None of that fits. None of it feels right.

Malcolm swallows thickly. It had been test, he realizes. A test for the both of them. Him _and_ John.

A wet trickle starts up in his cunt now, here in the cold stone prison of this basement, and he holds John’s gaze like his life depends on it.

Which it might, because his father isn’t here now to rip John off of him. To take the knife out of Malcolm’s hands and force John to submit under its blood-wet point. 

_“I fucking told you that control was important, John,” Martin had snarled as he held the edge of Malcolm’s knife against the nape of John’s neck. Blood was pooling beneath John as he shoved John’s pants down and took him roughly from behind. “And_ you _told_ me _that you could control yourself. You think my son is weak? Well, you couldn’t keep it in your pants, could you, and Malcolm here is_ clearly _not as helpless as you were betting on. He’s_ my _boy and you will never forget that.”_

 _Malcolm had stood there with his heatwet soaking through his pajama bottoms and watched his father mount John. Martin had never seemed so powerful, so virile, not even when strolling through a room of New York’s moneyed alphas. But Malcolm had seen something else besides that frantic, ugly rutting, hadn’t he? Martin was just as big and strong as John, but even with the heat stink in the air, his cock didn’t swell and make John bleed there, too. His knot had never thickened because Martin was like him._ An omega.

“No one deserves to be taken like that, especially an alpha like you,” Malcolm says, trying to build rapport again. A part of his mind is racing. Did his mother know? If Martin never knotted her, she must have. But then again, he’d so cleverly hidden his kills for decades and they’d bonded so young…. “You weren’t built for what my father did to you.”

“No. But I thank him for it,” John says. He rubs at the back of his neck. Does he carry a scar there from the bite of the knife? One to match the one at his side. “He was right. The dead were easy, but the living? I thought I had control, but I didn’t. The trials showed me that.”

Malcolm scrabbles to find an angle that won’t escalate the situation, but it becomes more and more difficult to ignore the wetness gathering between his legs. Soon it’ll be a steady dripping, a dump of chemicals in his veins, pheromones flooding the air, and blood rushing to his groin. He starts to shrink away from John, stopping himself and trying to mask the movement by shifting to sit cross-legged.

It’s a mistake. He can smell the wetness of his heatslick soaking into his shorts, the sharp peppery scent that mixes with the stink of his fear. His eyes widen as John stands up, looming above him, impossibly tall, his cock a heavy outline in his pants. There’s a sound, maybe a river, and in the back of his mind, Malcolm files that away.

“You have control now,” Malcolm reminds him, holding his hand out towards John. _A connection point_. He’s already lost the advantage so his only chance now is to tip the scales in the other direction, to make John want to protect him instead of claim him. “You’re fully in control.”

“I know, and it’s good that you know,” John says. “God has delivered you to me Malcolm, at the perfect time, at _your_ time. I’m going to help you through this. I owe it to your dad, for everything he did for me. Everything he taught me.”

Had John not realized that he’d been mounted and forced to submit by an omega? Or does he know deep down and refuse to believe it, instead choosing to elevate Martin into some sort of uber alpha? Malcolm wets his lips and tries to look away from where John is undoing his belt and opening his fly. 

“My father didn’t want you to mount me then. He wouldn’t want it now.”

John clucks his tongue as he pulls out his dick. Already it looks huge, too big to fit in Malcolm, even as his body is at its most loose and ready. John strips his shirt off overhead and drops it to the floor, his hand running down his front and then over to trace the ugly scar beneath his ribs. He draws in a deep breath to fill his lungs with Malcolm’s heatscent and the base of his cock throbs briefly. Malcolm’s own dick twitches in response and his front hole clenches, all the flesh around it swollen and tender and ready.

“Little Malcolm, we both know that’s a lie. I’ve proven myself now. I’m _worthy_ of his progeny,” John says, and gives his cock a long leisurely stroke before he lunges for Malcolm.

Malcolm scrabbles out of the way, the cuffs ripping at his wrists as he comes to the end of the chain far too soon. On a good day, he’d have speed and size to his advantage—the ability to duck out and under John’s reach. But he’s injured, and the fever is already rising, the insistent throbbing between his legs begging him to submit.

He ought to roll to his back, expose his neck, spread his legs. He ought to let John climb on top of him and rut into him. He kicks out instead, a low sweeping motion that brings John crashing down to one knee. The stand light falls with him, one bulb flaring out, and the ominous canvas bag lists to the side. Malcolm spots at least one axe in there and a ball peen hammer. It might be in reach.

But the pain doesn’t even slow John down. It’s not a blade slicing through his abdominal wall parting muscle like tissue paper. And Malcolm’s heat isn’t the feeble pheromonal call of a newly-fertile boy. He’s a man now nearing the peak of his fertility, his body desperately signalling for a mate.

John’s hand catches the chain and pulls Malcolm forward. He falls, unable to catch himself, and his chin strikes the stone. The taste of blood explodes in his mouth and stars swim in his vision, everything around him dimming.

He kicks wildly, but John had already stripped him of his belt and of his shoes so it doesn’t take much to get his slacks down to his knees—or his shorts, the smell of his heatwet thickening the air, filling his lungs with every breath. He can still scent John beneath it, the alpha’s desire for him raging hot and musky.

John is on him now, flipping him over, holding the chain in his fist as he wrenches Malcolm’s knees apart. John’s cock is angry and red, veins thick along the length and dripping at the tip.

“You don’t have to do this,” Malcolm pleads. He twists his hips uselessly, not enough leverage to move away as John pushes his cock down and nudges the tip around to find his cunt. His body betrays him, a fresh wave of slickness readying him for the push. “If you knot me and I get pregnant, what then? Do you really think you can raise a child? Or are you going to abandon it with me. I hate to break it to you, but I can hardly feed myself most days and I’m on four different highly-addictive medications. Is that the sort of upbr—”

“Shut up,” John roars, the sound rippling up through his throat. He jerks the chain taut, forcing Malcolm’s arms to the side and pinning them there. He curls his lip away from his teeth briefly then dips down to rub his jaw against Malcolm’s to transfer his scent to Malcolm’s skin. There’s a snarl rumbling beneath his words as he says: “If God didn’t want me to have you, he never would’ve put you in my path. I see that now. My work in that junkyard is done.”

A few probing thrusts and the hard nudge of John’s cock finds its way. He spears into Malcolm with a wet, nasty sound, slamming all the way to the root in one go. Malcolm’s mouth opens on a scream that ends in a gasping swallow of air. Blood is still leaking from where he’d bit his cheek and he swallows that down, too.

His core temperature is nearly at its peak, skin taut and itching as every pore in his body pumps out the scent of his heat. Like any alpha, John finds it irresistible, delicious in a way that makes him more animal than man. His pupils are blown dark and he drags the flat of his tongue up the side of Malcolm’s face.

“You can still stop, John,” Malcolm grinds out between his teeth. His back scrapes against the floor, tiny sharp bits of broken stone cutting through his shirt to bite at his skin as John plunges into him. “Your mother abandoned you. She hurt you, and the people she left you with only hurt you more. Trying to breed me isn’t going to undo any of that.”

Malcolm tries to keep talking, but words are harder and harder to find. The mental thread that could lead towards a resolution slipping out of his grasp. John’s cock is so fucking big. It’s a miracle it isn’t ripping him open, that he can take the whole of it. He whines as his body clutches hungrily to John’s cock, his own genitals engorged, so sensitive that he can feel each vein as its ripples into him. The ugly pleasure of it mixing with the gritty pain at his back and his wrists and his chin.

John’s hips slam against him relentlessly, short and shallow, and Malcolm feels the slippery wetness dripping out of him. He whimpers when the change in the air comes—the scent of his pheromones riding the blazing fever turning his veins to cinders. He hears himself whine and beg for the rise of John’s knot and the first pumping gush of his come.

The wound at his scalp is bleeding freely again, trickling down and stinging his eye with sweat and blood. Every so often, John licks it away, wide tongue sweeping over his lashes and scent marking him after. And when John’s jaws finally clamp along the tense column of his neck, Malcolm falls ragdoll limp, body fully submitting to what this alpha wants from him.

Head lolling to the side, Malcolm stares in horror at his own dead limbs. He’s always been so careful to stay on suppressants, and the one time he had to endure a heat, he’d locked himself in a room and fucked himself stupid with toys until it passed. But this—total involuntary submission of the nervous system…. Is this why Martin drugged his victims with ketamine? Did they even biotype him before they locked him away? This changes his profile entirely. 

And it changes the meaning of everything Malcolm has learned.

_The power of the mind can overcome anything, Malcolm, my boy. Instinct is a function of the brain and the nervous system. The human hindbrain is a powerful thing. Certain behaviors are written so deeply into our species that it’s human nature to follow them blindly, but you and I, we’re different. Never forget that, son._

When the swelling starts, a weak moan rides his exhale. His hole clutches greedily as John slams into him, grinds balls deep, his thick cock throbbing and getting thicker still.

“That’s it, Malcolm, now you get it. You belong to me and you carry my smell. Every inch of you inside and out is going to be _mine_.”

As the first hot splash of come floods into his body Malcolm focuses not on the feverish thrill rippling up from his cunt into his dick trying to trigger him to come too and seize up around John’s swelling cock, but on his fingertips. He pictures what it feels like to hold a card pinched there, recalls that simple routine he’s done every morning of every day for years now, and slowly his fingers come together.

 _I can create a place of peace and safety no matter where I am,_ he thinks, each word forming in his mind.

His mouth manages to shape the words, and then his tongue.

All the while John is slavering at his neck, groaning as his come fills Malcolm and his knot starts to thicken. He drives his hips forward with a breathy grunt, but he’s already in Malcolm to the hilt and it just pushes Malcolm further across the floor.

”I can create a place of peace and safety no matter where I am,” Malcolm whispers, fingers twitching. The open mouth of the canvas bag is right there, staring back at him.

“I’m going to breed you for days, little Malcolm,” John says, forcing his arms under Malcolm to cradle his limp form. Now that the drive to rut is fading, the instinct to protect swells up along with his knot. He nuzzles into Malcolm’s neck, inhaling their mixed scent.

Beneath the tickling brush of John’s beard against his skin Malcolm feels the alpha’s smile spread. Malcolm lowers his lashes in a slow blink.

“I’ll take you three, maybe four times. Pity your sister isn’t an omega too, and your mom, well, she’s a little old now to breed, but I might drag her down here and have her anyway.”

Not a river. Not the cabin. He knows where he is now. Malcolm focuses on every muscle in his arm, from shoulder to fingertip, the attachment points and functions, naming each one in his head and then willing them to work.

His touch finds the smooth handle of the hammer just as John rolls them over.

“What are you….” John blinks, post-coital pheremones dulling his senses. He frowns, confused. Malcolm should be draped over his chest ready to be stroked and fall asleep against him, not rising up on his knees.

It hurts, god it hurts, but Malcolm plants a foot to the floor and starts to lift himself higher. His body clutches to John’s swollen knot, refusing to let it go. Pain lances through him, burning more fiercely than his heat—white hot and searing. Malcolm’s teeth grind together as he slaps a hand down in the middle of John’s chest for leverage. John’s eyes flare wider and he yelps as he’s dragged upwards by his knot, his hips pulling off the floor.

With a howl, Malcolm forces himself up, something between his legs tearing as he rips himself off of John’s cock. Blood and come and his own heatwet freely pour down his thighs, and this time, John doesn’t react quickly enough.

When the hammer connects with John’s groin, his howl is infinitely louder.

*

_A few days later._

Being confined to a hospital bed under heat quarantine is frustrating to say the least. What might be worse is awkwardly leaking onto a sanitary pad spread beneath you while your mother frets at your bedside.

“Your sister says hello,” she tells him. She fidgets with her necklace. “How are the stitches healing up?”

Malcolm folds his hands over the blanket. “Just fine. The pain comes and goes. They dialled back the good stuff to put me back on a fresh dose of suppressants,” he says. What he doesn’t say is that it’s a near-constant ache, his night terrors have worsened, and he’s staring down at least a month of going out of his mind because he’ll need to stay off his feet. 

“I can’t believe they just rushed you in and sewed you up without any thought to whether or not you might scar.”

“They were saving my life, mother.”

“If there’s any permanent disfiguration my cosmetic surgeon can correct the damage of course. A little nip and tuck, a bit of filler, or even a full labiaplasty, whatever you need dear.”

Malcolm presses his lips together in a tight smile and counts to three slowly in his head. “Thank you, mother,” he says after a moment. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will, darling,” she coos, stepping in to smooth a hand over his hair and cradle his cheek. “But I want you to be _better_ than fine, and if a full downstairs renovation is what it takes, we’ll make it happen.”

There’s a light knock at the door to his room and he glances over to see Dani easing the door open a crack. “Hey, you, um...ready for some visitors? Doc said they’re going to hold you another day or two, but your bloodwork from this morning shows the suppressants are working. You’re off quarantine as of now.”

“Oh my god, finally, that’s fantastic,” Malcolm says, waving her in. “Please, come in.”

It’s not that he’s ungrateful that his mother has been first at his side during visiting hours, but he’ll take the excuse to avoid any further conversation with her about the shape of his labia. Also, no more quarantine means maybe he can talk Gil into bringing him a case or something to do other than sit around watching television.

Dani pushes open the door and calls out, “He’s decent!” down the hallway. She nods respectfully at Jessica as she bellies up to Malcolm’s bedside. Her scent washes over him—syrupy and rich like figs with a bite of cut grass—warm and welcome.

“Is the whole team here?” he asks. With his senses heightened, he can taste them in the air around her too: Gil’s scent musky and thick and carrying the sweetness of cloves, JT’s more earthy like leather and petrichor laced with gun oil.

“Yeah, we’re all here,” she says, reaching for his hand. Her fingers curl against his palm as her thumb drifts over his knuckles. “It’s amazing what you did, you know. Taking Watkins down like that in the middle of a heat.”

He dips his head, not entirely sure what to say to that. He can’t tell if she knows all the gory details or just the mortifying ones like how Gil had been the one to find him stumbling out of that hidden wall half-naked and bleeding. His mother sweeps her hand over his hair again, then scoops up her purse and announces that she’s going to get a coffee.

“Don’t let him talk you into thinking he can walk,” she says, fixing Dani with a look before breezing out the door and nearly bumping into JT on her way out.

“Ma’am,” he says, as he steps out of her way.

The look his mother gives JT makes _him_ blush, and when her eyes slide to Gil darkening the doorway too, Malcolm wants to burrow under the blankets. Is there anything worse than realizing you share the same taste in men as your mother? Is it better or worse than knowing that all of his colleagues can probably smell the slick still draining out of him right now. Maybe inviting them in was a bad idea….

From the corner of his eye, he catches Dani biting her lip to stifle a smile. “We’re just glad you’re okay,” she says, giving his hand a fresh squeeze. He squeezes back, and something warm stirs in his chest.

“You’re looking pretty good, considering,” JT says, and stations himself at the foot of Malcolm’s bed and gives him a once over. The furrow in his brow suggests he wants to say something about what Malcolm did with that hammer, but can’t quite figure out if it’s an appropriate time.

“Crushed it, didn’t I,” Malcolm says, delivering the joke for him.

“And then some,” he says. He unfolds his arms and braces his hands at the footboard, still keeping his bulk between Malcolm and the door. It could feel threatening, but it’s the opposite. Being this weak—this undeniably vulnerable—in front of them should be worse, but somehow…. 

“I’m glad you’re okay, Bright,” JT says.

Malcolm _knows_ his scent shifts at that, but he manages to keep his gaze from dropping as Gil moves into the space that his mother had occupied. He carefully sits up straighter, wincing at the fresh reminder of his wounds, and mumbles a thank you to Dani as she shifts his pillows to help better support him. 

“Sounds like you’ll be back on your feet in no time,” Gil says, hand finding his shoulder and giving it a firm squeeze before sliding up to cup his neck.

Without hesitation, Malcolm leans into the touch. If it had been any other alpha who’d found him furious and wounded and gripping that hammer—an alpha who didn’t register as family…. He doesn’t even want to consider what might have happened.

“What about Watkins?”

“He’ll be alive to face trial,” Gil says, still stroking the nape of his neck. The warmth of his hand soaks into Malcolm’s skin. “We’ll keep you updated, Bright.”

Malcolm relaxes a bit at that, releasing a tension he didn’t even know he was carrying. “Thank you.”

“In the meantime, if anything comes our way you can help out with while you’re on bed rest, I’ll let you know.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yeah, kid, it’s a promise,” Gil assures him, and by the looks on the others’ faces, they’ll hold him to it.

“You mind if one of us sticks around a bit?” Dani asks. “We were thinking we’d trade off, keep you company in shifts until they let you out of here.”

For all of them to so clearly and willingly have his back. It’s...nice. More than nice. Malcolm’s gaze drops to fix on his lap, and he closes his eyes, feeling overwhelmingly safe. Protected. _Loved._

“I’d like that,” he whispers, and that soft glow in his chest spreads to momentarily chase away the dull hurts still throbbing in his body. “I’d like that a lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Read more of my [Prodigal Son fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Prodigal+Son+%28TV+2019%29&user_id=ponderosa121), or talk to me about this twink getting wrecked on Twitter [@ponderosa121](https://twitter.com/ponderosa121) or on Discord in [Prodigal Son Trash](https://discord.gg/fQaRgBD).


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